Voices of Islam (83 page)

Before us is a long passage through a section of the mosque dating back to the Ottoman reconstruction of 1860. To our left is a low brass work parti- tion, beyond which lies the main prayer hall. To our right, facing Mecca is the lavishly ornamented southern wall. It is adorned with three superimposed calligraphic bands of Qur’anic verse. Below these runs a row of square frames, inscribed with names and titles of the Prophet, including Beloved of God, Mercy unto the Worlds, and Key of Paradise. These alternate with circular medallions, which read, ‘‘May God bless him and grant him peace.’’ With every forward stride, my longing to greet the Prophet swells more

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intensely in my breast. Suddenly, Mustafa takes my arm and directs me through an opening in the low barrier on our left. ‘‘Let us now perform the two cycles of prayer in ritual greeting of the mosque,’’ he instructs me. Just as the Muslim affi of God’s unity precedes the attestation of Muhammad’s function as His Messenger, our first devotional act, even here, should be worship of the One, the Transcendent Divine Being.

As we advance eastward, the color of the lush carpets beneath our bare feet changes from red to white, signaling that we are now within the sanctum of the
Rawda
(Garden). According to numerous traditions, this area of the mosque, extending from the Prophet’s house, where he died and was interred, to his
minbar
(pulpit), is one of the gardens of Paradise.
15
A few paces ahead of us is an ornate, free-standing marble prayer niche, erected at the spot where the Prophet would lead his followers in worship. Before we worship, Mustafa reminds me of the tradition stating that a prayer in this mosque is superior to a thousand prayers observed elsewhere, with the exception of the Great Mosque at Mecca.
16
At that point we offer individual prayers. In the final kneeling position, the air around me seems to pulsate with an inexplicably benevolent presence, as if gently stirred by the beating of angels’ wings. I conclude my devotions with the customary salutations of peace. ‘‘
As-Salamu ‘alaykum,
’’ I utter, turning to my right and then again to my left, where my gaze falls upon the Noble Burial Chamber of God’s Most Honored Envoy.

It is there that Mustafa now escorts me. We move forward through the
Rawda
and, passing beyond the partition, turn left into a crowded vestibule between the tomb enclosure and the southern wall. A Qur’anic verse on a nearby ornamental plaque commands: ‘‘Verily God and His Angels shower blessings upon the Prophet. Oh you who believe, call down blessings upon him and greet him with salutations of peace (Qur’an 73:56).’’ At this point, Mustafa performs the most important service of a
ziyara
guide by leading me in the recitation of the time-honored salutations and prayers that are made at the tomb of the Prophet Muhammad. It is an inspirational moment of pure verticality, for we are literally joining God and His angels in blessing the Prophet:

Peace be unto you, oh magnanimous noble leader and prodigious Messenger, gentle and compassionate. May the Mercy of God and His Blessings be upon you! Peace be unto you, oh Prophet of God! Peace be unto you, oh purest of God’s Creation! Peace be unto you, oh beloved of God! I testify that there is no god but Allah, alone and without associate, and that you are His devoted servant and His Envoy. I testify that you have delivered the Message and com- pleted your mission, and that you have given good counsel to the community of believers and striven in the path of God. May God then shower you with permanent blessings until the Day of Judgment. Our Lord, grant us the Good in this lower world and the Good in the Hereafter and preserve us from the punishment of Hellfire. Oh God, grant him every favor and the supreme merit,

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Voices of the Spirit

and grant him the loftiest status and resurrect him to the praiseworthy station, which You have promised him. Verily You are not one to break Your promise.
17

Despite the throngs of people surrounding the Prophet’s tomb, the feeling that one gets in the vicinity of God’s Messenger is one of extreme intimacy and affection. In this spot, one stands in front of the Prophet, who lies on his right side facing Mecca. The Messenger reportedly said that when some- one greets him in his grave, God returns his spirit to him so that he may hear and personally return the greeting.
18
The ardor of the subdued voices all around reminds me of a well-known hadith, which relates how a Bedouin once entered the mosque and asked the Messenger of God when the Final Hour would come. The Prophet responded, ‘‘Woe unto you! What have you done to prepare yourself for it?’’ Admitting that he had not accom- plished much, the man stressed his love for God and His Messenger. At this the Prophet reassured him, saying ‘‘Verily you will be included [in heaven] among those you have loved.’’ At this, the other Muslims present asked if the Prophet’s promise also applied to them. When the Prophet replied affirmatively, their happiness was boundless.
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Besides a feeling of intimacy and affection, the atmosphere around the Prophet’s tomb is also charged with profound deference and humility. In the presence of the Prophet, who will be the principal intercessor for his followers on Judgment Day, I am painfully aware of my own failings and unworthiness. During the Messenger’s lifetime, the Qur’an urged believers to come to him after having committed transgressions in order that he might entreat God’s forgiveness for them (Qur’an 94:63). Thus, for me and for many other visitors, this blessed encounter with the Messenger of God is also an opportunity to address fervent pleas to the Prophet to mediate on our behalf with God. In the view of the Wahhabi scholars of Saudi Arabia, this traditional practice is viewed as unacceptable and even bordering on idolatry. Stern guards are posted here to make sure that we do not raise our hands in supplication toward the tomb, or attempt to touch or kiss the enclosure around it.

Mustafa then ushers me a couple of steps further eastward, where we recite greetings and benedictions at the tomb of the Prophet’s close friend Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, whose epithet means ‘‘The True Believer.’’ After the Messenger’s death, Abu Bakr held the office of Commander of the Faithful (
Amir al-Mu’minin,
the offi title of the Caliph of the Islamic state) for two years before his own death. The hallowed chamber where Abu Bakr is buried was part of the dwelling belonging to his daughter ‘A’isha (d. 678
CE
), the Prophet’s favorite wife. Two or three paces further, we pay our respects at the tomb of ‘Umar ibn al-Khattab (d. 644
CE
), the second of the Rightly Guided Caliphs, whose strength of character and integrity were legendary. His 10-year rule was cut short by an assassin’s knife while leading the prayer only a few meters away in this mosque.

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Having performed the most essential rites of
ziyara,
I am led around the enclosure of the tomb chamber back toward the main prayer hall. As we walk, Mustafa whispers, ‘‘Both the original mosque and the adjoining houses of the Prophet’s wives were built of the most rustic materials. The walls were of unfired mud brick. Date tree trunks served as columns and were split for beams to support a roof made of layered palm branches and covered with earth. Over its long history, the mosque has been enlarged and renovated many times by successive rulers. Twice it was destroyed by fi and it had to be entirely rebuilt. But with each reconstruction, the position of the original columns, along with the location of the Prophet’s places of prayer and pulpit, were carefully preserved. And with each expansion the names and relative locations of historic doorways were also maintained.’’

Within the precincts of the
Rawda,
Mustafa points out several historic columns clad in white marble. Among them is The Pillar of Delegations, at whose base the Prophet sat when receiving representatives of Arabian tribes who came to swear their allegiance to him following the conquest of Mecca. Another is The Casting of Lots Pillar, before which the Prophet showed a marked preference for offering voluntary, individual prayers. Concerning the name of this column, the Prophet once said that if people realized the special grace that is to be found in worshipping at that spot, they would cast lots for the privilege.
20
In this most prized place of devotion, I wait my turn to offer a supererogatory prayer.

We then approach the intricately carved and gilded white marble pulpit (
minbar
). Dating from the late sixteenth century, its arched doorway gives way to a tall set of railed steps leading to dais housed in an ornamental pillared turret. The Prophet’s original
minbar,
destroyed in the great fi

of 1256
CE
, was a kind of raised wooden armchair mounted on two steps. In many traditions, it is depicted as standing astride the Prophet’s water basin (
hawd
) in Paradise, from which he will dispense to the blessed a drink that will forever banish all thirst.
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Mustafa recounts the wondrous story of the pulpit’s first use. ‘‘For several years the Messenger of God delivered the Friday sermon standing on this spot, occasionally supporting himself on the trunk of a date palm erected there for that purpose. When his fatigue became more apparent, he agreed to have a pulpit constructed for him. When he first ascended it, the assembled congregation was astonished to hear the palm trunk begin to moan like a she camel yearning for her offspring. It continued to moan until the Messenger came down from the pulpit and embraced it.’’
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Moving northward through the colonnaded hall, we enter a wide court-

yard. Here the sun’s light and heat are refracted through six enormous, but elegant, fabric umbrellas, installed during the latest expansion project. ‘‘The original Mosque of the Prophet also had a courtyard,’’ Mustafa explains. ‘‘Besides being an extension of the prayer space, it was used for other communal purposes. To its rear was a small shaded area, which served as a shelter for indigent male immigrants and occasional groups of visitors.

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Voices of the Spirit

As a result of living here in such close proximity to the Prophet, a number of these companions became leading scholars.’’

The shaded court suddenly echoes with the amplified, melodious call for the midday prayer. The space around us quickly fills up with men attired in a diverse range of traditional dress. The screened-off women’s section to our distant left is no doubt witness to a similar scene. When the second, fi al call to prayer sounds, we coalesce into long, orderly lines for worship. Afterward, as we exit, Mustafa proposes that I return to my hotel for a brief siesta. Suddenly feeling light-headed in the glaring midday sun, I happily submit to his suggestion.

Later, after the mid-afternoon prayer, I meet Mustafa at the southeast corner of the
Haram.
A brief stroll eastward across the geometrically patterned plaza brings us to the gates of Islam’s most hallowed cemetery,
Baqi’ al-Gharqad,
said to shelter the remains of more than 10,000 of the Prophet’s venerable companions. ‘‘The Prophet’’ Mustafa tells me, ‘‘made a regular habit of visiting this graveyard late in the night and he would say, ‘Peace be upon you, house of the believing folk. Coming upon you is that which you were promised, soon at a time decreed. And verily, God willing, we will be joining you. O God! Forgive the people of Baqi’ al-Gharqad!’’’
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Inside the cemetery, I am struck by the austerity of the vast expanse. Less than a hundred years ago, the tombs of its most illustrious personages were adorned with domed mausoleums and ornate headstones. In 1925, after conquering Medina, the forces of the Saudi King ‘Abd al-‘Aziz obliterated all of these funerary structures. Like their Wahhabi predecessors, who had fl the graveyard in 1805, these puritan warriors ascribed to the reformist doctrines of the theologian Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab (d. 1792), from whose name the term ‘‘Wahhabi’’ derives. While this demo- lition of tombs was and continues to be decried as a shameless desecration by many Muslims worldwide, the perpetrators saw it as an enforcement of a legal prohibition against the building of raised structures on Muslim tombs. From their uncompromisingly literalist perspective, they were simply doing their righteous duty in eradicating inadmissible innovations and objects of reverence that detracted from the worship of the One, utterly Transcendent God. Though I am sympathetic with the pious intentions of those who had erected the beautiful burial monuments that once stood here, I am forced to admit that the barren, bone-littered terrain now before me does serve to emphasize one of the principal reasons the Prophet encouraged Muslims to

visit graveyards: the remembrance of death.

Beginning with the members of the Prophet’s family, we recite salutations and prayers at each major gravesite. First, I am led to the graves of eight of the Prophet’s wives, referred to collectively as ‘‘Mothers of the Believers.’’ Then we visit the resting place of three of the Messenger’s daughters, Ruqayya, Zaynab, and Umm Kulthum. Next we move to an area, once covered by a large cupola, where several of his most eminent kinfolk

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are interred. These include his revered daughter Fatima (d. 632
CE
). Her marriage to the Prophet’s cousin ‘Ali (d. 661
CE
) produced al-Hasan (d. 669
CE
) and al-Husayn (d. 680
CE
), from whose loins issued the entire lineage of the Prophet’s descendents. Al-Hasan’s blessed body lies nearby. The same spot shelters a paternal uncle of the Prophet, al-‘Abbas (d. 653
CE
), whose progeny founded the ‘Abbasid Dynasty in 750
CE
. Here, too, is the revered tomb of Imam Ja‘far al-Sadiq (d. 765
CE
), a great-great-grandson of the Prophet through al-Husayn, and a central figure for both Imami and Ismaili Shiites. Further on, Mustafa guides me to the burial spot of Imam Malik ibn Anas (d. 798
CE
), founder of one of the four great schools of Sunni jurisprudence. At a surprising distance from the graves of his contemporaries, is the tomb of the third Rightly Guided Caliph, ‘Uthman ibn ‘Affan. In 656
CE
, he was murdered by rebels, who prevented his interment next to the Prophet or even in the main cemetery. Instead, he was buried in a small garden, which was incorporated into the enlarged graveyard by his clansmen after they had established the Umayyad Caliphate.